GLBT Travelers - Salt Lake City: Gayest US City? Really?

I found this to be an interesting read....

http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/09/whats-the-gayest-u-s-city-not-necessarily-the-most-gay-friendly/?hpt=hp_bn1

Here are the top 15 "gayest" cities, as ranked by The Advocate:

15. Denver, Colorado
14. Long Beach, California
13. Austin, Texas
12. Portland, Oregon
11. Little Rock, Arkansas
10. Grand Rapids, Michigan
9. Atlanta, Georgia
8. Knoxville, Tennessee
7. St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota
6. Ann Arbor, Michigan
5. Seattle, Washington
4. Fort Lauderdale, Florida
3. Cambridge, Massachusetts
2. Orlando, Florida
1. Salt Lake City, Utah

HA! I read that last night and laughed as well! I questioned the list and carefully looked in the margins for the small "advertisement" type. But???

Sure, try getting laid in Knoxville and let me know how well you do. :D

Ann Arbor??? I can tell you from living 45 minutes from a2 that is not the case. While it is a very liberal and gay frinedly city, if gays want to go to a night club they drive to either Toledo or Detroit.

Long Beach is gayer than LA, SFO, of San Diego or even Palm Springs? Give me a break.

Sure, try getting laid in Knoxville and let me know how well you do. :D

That's exactly it. I mean, one can appreciate that the Advocate - who did this ranking - wants to show readers that there is life beyond the big coastal cities for gay people, but, lol, for better or worse, getting laid is priority #1 for most of us, and for those who lie, it's not a priority. ;) :D

There's a reason that the Spartacus was such a popular travel guide for gay people in the era of B.I. - before the internet.

Ann Arbor??? I can tell you from living 45 minutes from a2 that is not the case. While it is a very liberal and gay frinedly city, if gays want to go to a night club they drive to either Toledo or Detroit.

A city can't be gay without night life? Seriously?

A city can't be gay without night life? Seriously?

Don't go polluting our American measures of gay worth with your Canadian values. :D

A city can't be gay without night life? Seriously?

Well no gay night life, no gay neighborhood, etc., how exactly does that make a city gay? They do have a nice gay owned restaurant/bar and a gay book store. But in MIchigan I think RO is gayer.

Well no gay night life, no gay neighborhood, etc., how exactly does that make a city gay? They do have a nice gay owned restaurant/bar and a gay book store. But in MIchigan I think RO is gayer.

Exactly, if you are gay typically you want to spend some of your time in a gay environment. This does not necessarily mean a bar. I go to a bar maybe once a month but I enjoy my mostly gay clientle gym and living in an environment where its more cute gay men in designer jeans and not post natal women with screaming, crying children and their overweight and very unattractive husbands.

Don't go polluting our American measures of gay worth with your Canadian values. :D

Canadian values, British measuring stick -- I live in Manchester. Pretty gay place and we manage to be gay without going to night clubs somehow.

Well no gay night life, no gay neighborhood, etc., how exactly does that make a city gay? They do have a nice gay owned restaurant/bar and a gay book store. But in MIchigan I think RO is gayer.

The statement was, in effect, that the place isn't gay because you have to drive to Detroit for night life. I've been to Ann Arbor. It's pretty gay because a lot of gay people live there and they somehow manage to socialize and be gay as blazes despite the lack of an explicitly gay commercial quarter.

RO may be gayer (whatever RO stands for). But in my books lack of a gaybourhood does not mean "not gay" that's all. It might just mean "integrated" or less ghettoized.

All that said, who in their right mind would go to Salt Lake to do gay stuff? *Shudder*

Canadian values, British measuring stick -- I live in Manchester. Pretty gay place and we manage to be gay without going to night clubs somehow.



The statement was, in effect, that the place isn't gay because you have to drive to Detroit for night life. I've been to Ann Arbor. It's pretty gay because a lot of gay people live there and they somehow manage to socialize and be gay as blazes despite the lack of an explicitly gay commercial quarter.

RO may be gayer (whatever RO stands for). But in my books lack of a gaybourhood does not mean "not gay" that's all. It might just mean "integrated" or less ghettoized.

All that said, who in their right mind would go to Salt Lake to do gay stuff? *Shudder*

But to me "a gay city" means there is part of the city where gay life is very visible and vibrant. Go to the Publix on 5th Street on Miami (SoBe) or the Publix in Wilton Manners (FLL) and its gay abound. And of course this is not a bar or a club. Go to the biggest grocery store in Ann Arbor and its likely full of women and children with some straight men being dragged along (sometimes reluctantly.)

We now live in a nation where luckily there are out gay people in small and medium size cities. But the whole point of a survey would be those locales that are the "gayiest", in other words where this is a definite sense of community. And there are some smaller cities such as Columbus and Montclair, NJ that fit that bill.

Canadian values, British measuring stick.
Lets leave the metric system out of this. They tried forcing that on us in the 70s and all we got out of it was the 2-litre soda bottle. :D

All that said, who in their right mind would go to Salt Lake to do gay stuff? *Shudder*
Surprisingly enough, I've done a few gay stuffs in Salt Lake City. It was a work trip so it wasn't exactly my sole mission. ;):cool:

Surprisingly enough, I've done a few gay stuffs in Salt Lake City. It was a work trip so it wasn't exactly my sole mission. ;):cool:

I worked with an actress-between-gigs years ago who'd relocated from the West Coast (strangely, I still remember her name! (she even has a page on IMDB)), and I recall she once told me almost breathlessly, twinkle-eyed about this "thriving underground" scene in, of all places, Salt Lake City ("...hee, hee, hee, cackle, cackle!"). It was clear she was including lots of gay extracurricular activities.

I would not live in any of those 15 cities. Even if they are gay-friendly or gay-tolerant, they each basically have other big problems which negate that benefit IMO.

I used to think that I was straight until I got a job transfer to Salt Lake City years ago. I was seduced by those cute Mormon boys and lo and behold, I converted......but not to Mormonism. Not sure what the gay scene is like today in SLC, but it was definitely lots of fun when I used to live there.

There's plenty of ex-LDS gays living in the SLC area. There's even a little gayborhood, Sugar Hill or Sugar something... I didn't sample the menu what with working 12-hour days at a customer site. Grr. But oh hell no would I want to live there: beautiful scenery when there's no dirty thick inversion layer, LDS meddling in nearly everything.

Wonder why they chose Cambridge MA specifically over Boston... there's much more going on this side of the river.